Government Whip ‘invites’ Cabinet to consider withdrawing car park tenders

Government parliamentary Whip David Agius made an unprecedented invitation to Cabinet, asking it to consider withdrawing the car park tenders, which has triggered a motion by the Opposition, and received the backing of maverick MP Franco Debono.

Agius, who was speaking on TVAM this morning ahead of today's House Business Committee which will set the agenda for Parliament which reconvenes today after a long summer recess, said that it his invitation to Cabinet comes in the wake of what Opposition leader Joseph Muscat and Franco Debono said over the weekend.

Speaking in Lija yesterday, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said that the Opposition expects the House Business Committee to treat with urgency its motion calling for the car park tenders to be withdrawn since the tender was closing on October 26.

Muscat said that the tender was grossly irresponsible in proposing a monopoly without setting any parameters for charges.

"We want to safeguard consumers. We do not want the people to have another burden," he said adding that the PL was proposing solutions because those who created the problems could not solve them.

Meanwhile, in his latest of a spate of postings in his personal blog, the maverick Nationalist MP Franco Debono declared that he would be voting in favour of Labour's recently tabled car park privatisation motion.

"I have already made it clear I will not support a government with Austin 'ghamilna pipi' Gatt in Cabinet. Hence I will not support any of his decisions, " Debono wrote.

Debono was reacting to transport minister Austin Gatt's comments who dubbed Labour's motion which calls for the repeal of the privatisation of car parks as a way of "abusing some of the most precarious of workers, the parkers."

Gatt was referring to the unpaid car park attendants who are licensed by Transport Malta to collect gratuities from motorists, in return for their assistance while manning the public car parks.

In his blog on Satuday, Debono further queried how Joe Theuma found himself in Austin Gatt's ministry and what kind of work he was doing, and whether he was qualified, adding that the media never bothered to enquire about him.

Theuma's past jobs consisted of Chief Operating Officer at CT Park Ltd and was also responsible for "special projects" executed within the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture.

Debono further wrote that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi' s fear to remove Gatt from Cabinet, after one scandal after another, is already unexplained and sinister, but his expectation that his minister can continue to steamroll over everyone is close to diabolical.

"So after all these warnings and giving them all these chances, I will very clearly be voting against Austin Gatt in the Car Parks motion, and not least because these issues should not be tackled in the middle of an election campaign. Other countries have laws prohibiting these practices."

Debono also felt that since some weeks ago "people very close to Gatt mobbed the entrance to the Stamperija", this shed an important light "on his contribution to political polarisation in Malta since the turbulent 1980s".